Hamilton for Next Year from Superintendent Banda

Thank you to Grey Watch for putting this up (bold mine).  I would say, from the Superintendent's statements, that Hamilton is going to be a lot like Eckstein for next year. 

June 7, 2013

Dear Hamilton International Middle School community,

As many of you are aware, enrollment is on the rise throughout our school district, including at Hamilton International Middle School. At every school we must balance the safety and security of our students with the need to ensure all of our students receive a high quality education.

For the 2013-14 school year, we are planning for 1,100 students at HIMS – an increase over our current enrollment of 975. We believe we can serve this number of students in our current space. We are not planning to relocate any 6-8th grade students to other schools for the upcoming school year. The maximum capacity of the building is 1,294, and we will continue to work with the City of Seattle to ensure we are meeting all the safety codes.

I know supporting this increase in students will present some challenges, so we are working with HIMS staff to ensure there is enough space to continue the quality teaching and learning. We have already increased the staffing allocation for HIMS, so the necessary teachers will be in place for the start of school. If needed, we may also add staff such as hallway monitors. We will also work with the City of Seattle on traffic safety in the area, and look at solutions for staff parking and drop off/pick up for families.

In addition, any students who are testing into APP during the summer will be placed at Hamilton only if there is space available. All current APP students who live in the Hamilton APP pathway will have a seat at HIMS for the fall.

For more detailed information about enrollment at Hamilton, please visit: http://bit.ly/HIMS2013capacity

I want to thank Principal Cindy Watters and the HIMS staff for their ongoing work to ensure the needs of students are met. I know they will do an excellent job next year serving and supporting all of our students.

Sincerely,

José Banda
Superintendent

Seattle Public Schools

Comments

Anonymous said…
Crazy because I have a SPS document from 6/26/11 that lists the Hamilton capacity as 1013

- fuzzy math
Anonymous said…
And I heard a capacity of 960. I think they are not clarifying the difference between building capacity numbers for Health and Safety (1296), which means fire code and minimum number of facilities, with those of functional capacity (1013, 960, or whatever fits the latest plan), which means what can be scheduled.

confused parent
Anonymous said…
Does anyone know what this means?

"any students who are testing into APP during the summer will be placed at Hamilton only if there is space available."

So what if there isn't space available for all APP-eligible students? Isn't there a policy to place all APP-eligible students? My kid tested in a couple of years ago and now I'm worried that there may not be a place for her (she would got to WMS in two years, but I'm assuming the same could occur at WMS).

- dave
lendlees said…
Dave-

It means if you applied during open enrollment you are counted in the ~1100 students coming to HIMS in the fall. If you are applying to get into APP over the summer (transfer into district) then you are NOT guaranteed a seat at HIMS (aka, your child could be bussed to WMS). This is ONLY for 2013 - 2014. With boundary changes coming for 2014 they (hopefully) will be taking into consideration the larger number of currently enrolled/eligible students.

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